Quirks of Biporism

I ran out of medications the day I saw my doctor last. She was to refill it but the pharmacy did not receive the prescription. That was also the day the clinic was closed for an entire two weeks. I was very upset. I sound clear minded now, but that’s because I am. I have to praise this very very rare moment of clarity.

ANYWAYS!!!!

I went through withdrawal symptoms: suicidal ideation, headaches, chills, and severe depressions of hopelessness and a bit of dissociation. I did not go to see a doctor and instead sought the support of my friends. Of course no one is on the same medications I am on, but that also wouldn’t work anyways. It takes at least two weeks to feel the effects of some of these drugs, and I’m about to run out of my other prescription as well.

I wish my doctor warned me that the clinic would be closed for two weeks. She only told me the usual, “see you in two weeks” or “see you in three weeks.” Not, the clinic is going to be closed for the next two weeks, see you then.

So how did I cope with all this? I just handled it. I slept for many hours, stayed indoors, and texted with many friends who reminded me they cared for me. I put all self harming devises out of reach and went to sleep when I had ideas. My support group really helped me through this. I advise having a support group, because I remember when I didn’t have a support group and actually attempted suicide. As you can tell, I lived… and I’m glad I did. Now I can inform the public.

It’s not good to be stubborn. I should have gone to the hospital, but everything turned out well. If you don’t go, just be well. Eat plenty, drink plenty, and spend time with friends. Let them know where you are at mentally. Keep them up-to-date on your feelings, thoughts, and what you are doing in case they have some insight you could use.

This leads me into my next project. It seems that at my school there are actually a large number of people with bipolar disorder, and I’m sure the support groups are light to nil. Again, it is not good to have no support group. Get one! Join some community groups. Where I live, there is a group called Depression & Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA). (http://www.dbsalliance.org) It is very small where I live, and I want to build it up. Right now there are so many “old” people. Hahahaha. I want there to be younger people such as myself mixing well with the older people, so I will work on spreading the word. Support me you all in my endeavors!

I have been trying to write this article for about three weeks now. I realize that I’m just heading toward a manic state and when I actually get it out, it will be the most truthful piece I have written so far.

What have I written so far? Here…

“I am not sure if it’s right to say that I’m flexible with my moral values or not. I think I do have core values, but they may change during manic and depressive states.

I would say that I’m a monogamaous person, but when I don’t feel the commitment from the other, and I’m in a hypomanic or manic state, I will fish around for others to sleep with.

So what are morals? Google tells me “A person’s standards of behavior or beliefs concerning what is and is not acceptable for them to do.” And well, that changes every time I hit a manic episode. It’s okay for me to be hypersexual, and want to make love to the world each time, but then that’s hedonism, with a bad connotation when I’m not manic.

Is it okay to have fluxuating morals? That just doesn’t make sense to me. I think what happens is that we all find the holes in our moral beliefs and adjust accordingly.”

And what am I thinking right now? Well perhaps by having changing morals I have no morals. Just forget all this shit. Who cares beyond ourselves to ourselves? Things like this only matters to us, that is why you are reading this.

My advice: Go with your instincts. See where that takes you. And where that takes you will go up, and it will go down, and it will go tangential to everything in every way. Learn from each experience. That is how you will be able to create your own moral values. Don’t copy another’s. Learn about yourself and what works. You will learn what works. Short cuts like following a set prescription of ways will just leave you curious and perhaps wanting more and more and more and more and more. Forget it. Just DO!!!

Also, learn from others mistakes. Watch them. Are you similar? Well change. Don’t be a loser and do what the people are losing do. They are obviously doing something wrong. Learn from those doing what you want. and again:

I realized today that perhaps it would be a good idea to include an article that tells the reader exactly what bipolar disorder is and mention some of the variations and symptoms.

Bipolar Disorder is a mood disorder where affected people experience disruptive mood swings, but it is not that simple. The moods range from mania or hypomania to depression or major depression. In some cases, psychosis can be present.

These are the characteristics of each state from “Bipolar Disorder” by Francis Mark Mondimore, M.D. :

Because of the grand feelings, this can lead to impulsivity, exuberance, and overconfidence that can lead to spending sprees, sexual promiscuity, and overuse of intoxicating substances such as alcohol, with no concern for what can become catastrophic consequences.

Hypomania:

Mild mania –mildly increased energy, mild euphoria… not agitated or frenzied, not nearly as disorganized as the manic person, and doesn’t cause severe social or occupational impairment

Depression can debilitate a person making ordinary tasks require extraordinary effort. In the elderly depression can be misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s disease because of overlapping symptoms such as memory loss and an impaired command of language.

There are a few diagnosis of bipolar disorder based on the DSM-IV:

– For Bipolar I, the subject must have at least one full blown manic episode.

– For Bipolar II, the subject must have at least one hypomanic episode and at least one major depressive episode.

– For cyclothymia, at least one hypomanic episode with periods of depression, but doesn’t meet the criteria for major depression

– For Bipolar NOS… well this is a category when the disorder doesn’t fall into a subtype

So if even half of this fits someone you know, have them see a licensed professional, psychologist or psychiatric doctor, to get help. Bipolar disorder gets worse over time if left untreated. The majority of those who cycle rapidly (4+ episodes per year), had symptoms for years before being diagnosed; so do not wait. Get treated now!

There are times where we get confused… or at least I do, and I need to find myself again and again and again and again. I do not think I have actually found myself yet, or if I did, I promptly forgot. Do you also feel lost as what to do next and or direction in life? And do you sometimes struggle with what you even like? Well part of that could be depression talking.

If you feel you have lost interest in some of the activities you use to love, you could be simply depressed. Some symptoms of depression also include (from “Bipolar Disorder” by Francis Mark Mandimore M.D.):

I wrote that just because I may be just a bit depressed now, but I have had the symptom of not knowing what to do for awhile, which may also be depression talking. Say you are in a depressed state, speak to your physician for what to do. In my case, my doctor recently added an anti depressant, creating a medication mixture. If she adds one more, I will call it a medication cocktail. I probably won’t be able to feel the effects for a few weeks though.

For the sake of discussion, I am going to assume my problem is both depression and not. So for depression therapy of some sort (like playing with fluffy animals), a hobby (like drawing and painting), and medications should work.

Moving on, one of my friends said to me, “stick to the good and the ick will fall away.” I know I can trust in those words, because in the past, when I was goal driven toward what I just knew I had to do or have, the obstacles were easy to overcome. One thing I have done in the past is go to the Career Center on my college campus to take various inventories of my talents and interests. Well I am most interested in psychology, but today I also know I am interested in making money playing Magic the Gathering. Haha!

Now I know I must solve my dilemma. I need funds to maintain this hobby, so I will add a donation box to this site soon. If you want to help me do the things I love, please donate J

Now I know I just switched modes very quickly, so by saying this, I am quickly switching back. Taking inventories of what you want can help. Also, just thinking deeply of the life you want helps as well. Perhaps draw a picture or write an extensive journal entry of the type of life you want. Soon after, the answers will come. If it sounds like a get rich quick scheme, think harder… unless it is marriage, then marry money. Hahahhahah!!!!!!!

Remember: “The clearer your vision of what you seek, the closer you are to finding it” –anonymous

Also, do not forget to ask your friends and acquaintances about the talents they see in you. Perhaps they have some insight as well. Last, perhaps a test will tell you all you need to know. I would say read Steve P., but it has not worked for me so far. His advice is to write down ideas until you reach one that makes you cry… and you will find your life purpose. But that is up to you if that would be the case.

I will update you on what I have discovered about myself. Until then, please leave some feedback and email me letting me know what you want to read about next and your thoughts.

Impulsive Spending is a marketable characteristic of mania, don’t you agree. Well Impulsivity is one, and spending sprees are another; separate characteristics but essentially the same thing in terms of mania. I’ve read about and know many bipolar persons in debt because of that function in their brain that un-inhibits them and allows everything impulsive, from simple gambling (perhaps because you feel in-sync with the universe) to buying airline tickets abroad… and then going!

Some of the things I have done hardly compare, perhaps because I have no credit card! Hahaha!

Does a person going on these spending sprees regret any of these things? Many of the times I’ve went on sprees I have not. I tend to buy things that compliment my image or are investments for the future. I guess I have a practical functional approach that saves me many of the times. Other times, it is just me spending money on my friends… so it’s good to be my friend, especially if you like food.

But let us consider those who harbor guilt and regret. I think these types tend to spiral into depression at a much faster rate than others due to stress regarding their activities, that they really cannot afford. I do not know and cannot seem to find the facts and figures, but I do hear (not hearsay though), from doctors and other persons with bipolar disorder that most bipolar patients have more and longer depressed episodes than manic episodes, but I am not sure that is necessarily a good thing. Perhaps coming out of Depression, one spirals high into mania and just does whatever strikes their fancy, much like me.

So what does impulsive spending signify? Confidence and/or trust in the Universe? Or is it perhaps a convoluted way of self medicating and if so, medicating what? It’s both! We are self medicating our Self-Esteem. Many subjects in a manic phase display a sense of grandiosity. For me, that’s just another way of including narcissistic personality disorder. Hahaha! I admit I am a narcissist. Anyways, in order to support the grandiose life style, it only makes sense to spend money like diamonds. (Diamonds are quite common by the way); and in supporting this life style, we tend to really trust that the Universe/God and we will be able to support this habit. And with so much confidence, it is easy to not need to look forward to the consequences because again, it will all just work itself out for the best. Yes! Manic individuals are very optimistic as well. So this insane mixture of personal awesomeness, universal favor, and desire gives us impulsive spending potential and kinetic energy.

How do we stop this? The only way is to train the self to look at the “Real” potential consequences and learn from experiences first and secondhand. For me, I “got real” when I started a budget sheet and realized I would be completely at zero dollars right around the end of the month. That reformed me fast, but I do realize that when I do have money, I will be able to rationalize my spending habits again, and so will others with impulsive habits.

I decided today would be the topic of pressured speech. It was initially unclear to me until a friend explained it to me. Instead of giving you her rant, essentially it is the attempt to verbalize every simultaneous occurring thought which manifests as jumping topics to the listener who cannot necessarily follow the connections; and I do believe there are connections.

If I really thought about it, then perhaps I have had this illness for an extremely long time. When talking to friends, they tend to say I jump to unrelated topics too often, but I have learned to draw the connections so they do not necessarily feel left out. My first post could be thought of as pressured speech, but then it all made sense in the end… I hope. They were/are all connected to my purpose of making these posts.

I find pressured speech too often to be a manifestation of having racing thoughts. Often I have so many thoughts that I actually forget some. I really do need to get a portable recorder one day, so that I can actually follow my own ideas better, but then, that still doesn’t capture everything. In notebooks I have notes just about everywhere. And because they’re not in any order and more often than not, scribbled to sometimes an extent of illegible, I lose myself. Where was I going? I lost my previous thought and then I get anxious until I have another thought; which too leads to an additional 20 something or more thoughts in a span of two to six seconds!

When these thoughts try to come out verbally, as I mentioned, they manifest in pressured speech, or verbal puke to the person who cannot understand, or candy to the person who cannot keep up and digest it all but are intrigued.

“Elyn Saks, a mental health law professor at the University of Southern California who also developed schizophrenia as a young adult, said that people with psychosis do not filter stimuli as well as others without the disorder, meaning that they’re able to ponder contradictory ideas simultaneously and gain insight into loose associations that the general unconscious brain wouldn’t even consider worthy of sending to consciousness.

Saks said that while the invasion of nonsense into conscious thought can be overwhelming and disruptive, “it can be quite creative, too.”

This makes me actually want to lower my medications again. Really, I still think my cat painting is the best and that happened during a mixed episode. That’s another topic though…

It’s a good article and inspires more research. It is a bit technical but worth the read. I apologize for getting a little distracted there. Hahaha! This is why this article went from being on solely pressured speech and racing thoughts to including genius and perhaps even celebrities soon too, like Van Gogh, Robert Downy Jr, and Vivien Leigh.

“Genius Insanity”… I actually do not find it derogatory at all, but personally “Tortured Genius” fits better.

Say there are two types of emotional acquisition: learning (nurture) and nature (in born).

In nurture, we copy the reactions and action reaction and first, actions of someone within our communicative sphere. The order is action, action-reaction (what do we do?) and then reaction (what either of us do). If we don’t react, we’re more likely to see their reaction in partial or luckily whole.

As infants, toddlers, children and perhaps beyond into adolescence, teen-hood up to 23 years of age men and 20/21 years of age women, we copy the reactions of our peers and close adult figures.

In this sphere I can say without a doubt that I do not fall into this category. My dad could be violent, but I can only remember seeing him about ten or twelve times, and that’s with a give or take two occasions I can’t remember. Only a very few times I actually saw the violence… or heard. I could speculate from things I heard and tone and decibel and so on, but that’s it.

On the other hand, I was with my mom all the time. She was extremely volatile and had violent, some many times abusive outbreaks that involved unreasonable spankings and emotional manipulation.

I didn’t think of the emotional manipulation initially. Overall her method was a sort of operant conditioning. My brother and I in the end though never learned the proper behaviors and were left, even up till now, generally confused.

In comparison, I have not copied these behaviors of either major influence in my life. Having few friends and being mainly an independent introvert, my behaviors were quite original from birth to the end of childhood.

These include quiet solitude and agitation at being bothered, which neither parent had. Taking chances like jumping from the top of a flight of stairs or fashioning a stairwell sled and self mutilating behaviors such as stressing at lack of perfection, OCD behavior, and picking my skin until sebum of blood excreted… yea, my parents didn’t do any of this. I also did not see my parents behave any sort of sexually except for perhaps a hung of kiss here and there. I conversely, not seeing them bump naughties, already learned the beginnings of masturbation and the pleasurable tingling feeling of touching my clitoris – though I did not know the name of that for perhaps another ten of so years. Haha!

And as for anger, besides agitation, annoyance, of not getting what I want, anger did not happen. It was a rare but more of a natural occurrence as well.

Now that we’ve made it here, lets speak of “de natures!”

Nature means inherent; Inherent as in chemical make-up, as in base personality, or both! Perhaps our personality is a sum of volatile chemical make-up, such that we know serotonin is linked to emotional expression of depression, dopamine – happiness, and adrenaline – alertness. So for this case of nurture, we will refer to nurture in the manner of base personality or characteristics we are born with: It’s natural.

It’s simple to say, “well it’s natural to x, y, z – cry, cry more, and get upset if you don’t get what you want,” because the action, action-reaction, and reaction are all a part of the statement as an explanation. So here I want to qualify again, some things are learned, but base personality, which includes emotions are natural. The root of all emotions coems from our functioning in this world. They evolved over time when we see we are not getting the reaction we want. Anger, one of our first emotions, tends to stick with us from childhood to elder-hood because we haven’t integrated alternatives in our experienced AND somehow Anger works. Haha! Anger holds stress, but through action we release it. Until one knows better, there is no regret, guilt, or sin involved (I’M CLEAN!!!!)

It starts out: I’m angry. Noun won’t action for me, like dad wont’ play with me, as in my case.

This formula sticks and evolved through formal learning stages unless countered, such as through Religious Indoctrination. So the formula after formal reasoning stage of learning becomes, (and by the way, learning capacity and ability is genetic here and everywhere): I’m angry becausenoun wont’ action, so to get noun to do this I willaction. (“Will” will be another topic at some point). Being kind and generous is not working, so I’ll be angry and volatile… Patience I learned a little, so I’ll wait… no response, then angry again. Something better hasn’t come along? Angry again!

Anger gets conditioned into the self, so it becomes it’s own conditioned right from childhood, where it’s absolutely natural.

So what we have after formal reasoning is that nature becomes “de natures”-nurture combo because of repetition learning.

On an Early Sunday afternoon, I decided to start what I have been intending to do for ages (since January 15, 2010 about 9ish-am); And what is that, start a blog. It took an additional two minutes to decide that I most certainly needed to have a blog investigating the world of bipolar disorder inside me and outside me.

I’m also curious about the entire creative aspect associated with mood disorders. One, because well, I have bipolar disorder, and since a child, always had a talent for the arts, 2d, 3d, and performing. Who else out there has a creative talent of some sort? I’ll be investigating this.

I will also be investigating what everyone hates. I’m sure if I can manage to memorize or keep a list on me at all times, I can have more agreeable people in my life. Hahaha! Sure I am loving to others, but then I must see if there are others out there like me too (euphemistic) “unique” to exactly fit in. What do you do to fit in without losing yourself? I will be investigating that too.

But overall, as you can probably tell, I’m not organized right now at all. I’m not exactly ranting with pressured speech or any other speech impediments my doctor likes to point out. This… COULD… be a good sign. I don’t know.